Ch. V is pretty much the same point I was making in 's recent thread, which is not surprising since I stole it from Midgley and Anscombe and co, who presumably were also influenced by Ryle.

Yeah, IV didn't bite.

You are a mysterious and obscure person, Banno. — Alkis Piskas

Well, what I'm relating is pretty much standard OLP of the Oxbridge variety, a bit archaic, but perhaps a background for current ideas in analytic philosophy.

Let's go over it again.

There's an argument, found in Austin but implicit in Wittgenstein and Quine and others, pointing out that meaning is more than what is found in a lexical definition.

There's the observation, central to OLP but also found in other areas, that often what is at stake in a philosophical discussion is exactly the meaning of the terms involved, and in such case that stipulating definitions would be dogmatic and counterproductive.

There's an off-hand rejection of a certain pop philosophy as overly simplistic.

And a quote from Wittgenstein, used several times, reiterating the first point in this list: that there is a way of understanding the meanings of words that is not found in their lexical definitions.

What was obscure or mysterious here?

Or was your ire raised by my opinion of Kastrup?

Chapter Five is most amusing; and pertinent to several recent threads.

I was just trying to understand the term. I still am. — frank

Me too.

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/14613/philosophical-jargon-supervenience/

I did a thread on that! — frank

And a good thread it was, too. But perhaps inconclusive. And certainly folk hereabouts missed it.

Monism solves that problem — frank

Except for the traffic lights.

And so finally we arrive at supervenience. Now it might get interesting.

1) Some things are physical
2) Monism is true
Therefore: 3) Everything is physical — bert1

Oh, very good. Ignoring the idealists, this brings it down to how we fill out (2).

Tis me — javra

It was @apokrisis I had in mind. But you may have made a similar error.

Because contemplation is not something we do? — javra

Because contemplation is passive. Measuring and spending are not passive.

And I bet they still maintain this bit of advanced philosophical thought. — javra

They still lurk, but haven't posted in months.

It might be better to think of inches and dollars as something we do rather than something we contemplate.

SO the play has begun, the teams have taken their place, and the only game in town is now physicalism vs idealism.

Which is a shame.

I use MathType, set to Wikipedia format, then change < to [ and > to ] at either end. It usually works but sometimes not, and I have no idea why. — jgill

Thanks. I don't use math often enough to have an app for it, so I type it manually or steal it from somewhere else - which is why I had a $\delta x$ where a $\Delta x$ would have been preferred.

Does an inch exist on a ruler without someone looking at it? — jgill

Long ago, one of the regulars here insisted that Mount Everest did not have a height until it was measured. The prognosis was advanced pragmatism, unfortunately incurable.

Then the causation chain exists as a mathematical enterprise but cannot be associated with a particular value. It simply is. (My attempt at philosophy) :cool: — jgill

I think this is pretty much it. My temptation, given an OLP background, is to see causation as primarily a way of talking about stuff. So things happen in the word, the window breaks, the rock flys, the child throws, but what counts as "A caused B" very much depends on what one is talking about - did the rock cause the broken window, or was it the child? It depends on what you are talking about, and what you are doing. Meaning as use, again.

, Again, given that you have been unable to distinguish A=A from A⊃☐A, you'll have to also forgive me for setting aside your opinion on issues metaphysical.

I'm always open to and interested in new or different ideas. — Alkis Piskas

And yet you hide when one is presented to you on a silver plate:

...the reference has nothing to do with consciousness — Alkis Piskas

So be it.

I guess for those untrained in philosophy the delineation of what is physical is difficult. — Tom Storm

...and even worse for those trained in philosophy. I'm taking as a rule of thumb that the physical is the stuff they talk about in physics books.

Cheers concerning the grammar thing. Pretty much stolen from Wittgenstein I'm afraid.

Your intervention is welcome - I wasn't much enjoying myself. Yes, $\Delta x$ is clearer than $\delta x$.

A formatting question - sometimes I get a line feed before the math expression, other times, not - I don't see any obvious reason why. Any suggestion?

The distance from the hill as one walks towards it grows smaller, and the line of sight distance to the peak also diminishes, but the height of the hill remains constant. The angle of line of sight grows also. — jgill

Oh, I was thinking of the height, say above sea level, decreasing as one moves away from the peak - not the apparent height of the hill. Interesting take.

Minds responding to other minds acting in the world perhaps.

Maybe you can be 's foil in a game of Socratic irony? I suppose he wants to construct a regress of some sort.

Are you going to answer my question with a question, or answer it? — Philosophim

Answering a question with a question is answering...

Where do traffic laws come from Banno? — Philosophim

It's your argument. I'll not put it together for you.

Are you going to argue that traffic laws are physical? Wouldn't that be a category error?

Can you point to a physics text that shows how to derive "stop on the red" from first principles?

we have not discovered anything that exists apart from matter and energy. — Philosophim

Yeah, we have. Traffic laws.

Again, given your views on instantaneous velocity and $0.\dot 9 = 1$, you'll have to forgive me for setting aside your opinion on issues mathematical and physical.

At some point it becomes worthless to continue such discussion.

The example I gave was the height of a hill with regard to distance from the peak. The height changes over distance, not over time. — Banno

In what way can "y may well change with a change in x" in which there does not occur a before and after the addressed change? — javra

The example I gave was the height of a hill with regard to distance from the peak. The height changes over distance, not over time.

I don't know how to make this any clearer.

I'm not asking about the symbols "$\frac{\delta x}{\delta y}$", but about the mathematics, or better, if we take x and y as displacement, the change in displacement of x with respect to y. An example might be the change in height of a hill with regard to distance from the peak.

Yes, the sign does not change. But the value of y may well change with a change in x, yet without t.

I don't think you have followed this, but perhaps we'd best leave it there.

By my estimation we're a group of people who either aren't doing philosophy or don't wish to be doing it. — fdrake

Yep.

I think I was misreading you. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Ok.

What is passed off as physics around here is dreadful. But not quite as bad as what is supposed dot pass for philosophical insight. I'll agree with you that idealism vs physicalism fails to be a useful distinction.

yeah, I was a bit distracted.

Perhaps if I describe what I think is happening.

There is a metaphysical view that holds that causation and time are inextricably linked. It's in effect a bit of grammar, such that folk hold that "change" (that word) ought only be used for sequences of events over time.

But when we look around we find changes that do not require time. We have at hand three examples: the image that changes form white to yellow, Hook's law, and $\frac{\delta x}{\delta y}$.

Now those who hold to the metaphysical view will deny that these are instances of change, and offer reasons for not accepting them.

Such folk are introducing ad hoc excuses not to see that their metaphysical view is false.

But anyway, may I ask again, if there is no change apart from time, how do you understand $\frac{\delta x}{\delta y}$? You must, I presume, claim that it is not a change?

I'm not sure if that solves the issue though. — Count Timothy von Icarus

I'm not sure to which "issue" you refer.

If we're physical, how can we "do" things that none of our more basic, better understood physical components can do? — Count Timothy von Icarus

So, by way of an instance, we can count, but there is no purely physical explanation of how or what counting is. hence physical explanations are useless here. Hence there are things that are not explained by physics. Some claim that somehow counting emerges from the physics of the brain, but it remains that so far no account can be found of how this happens, still less how it is that this counting enables international credit ratings and so on.

My suspicion is that panpsychism is bunk, and that somehow counting is the result of physical interactions. But I don't know how, and I do not have to take a stance on this.

For instance, in what theory or truth that you wish to uphold is truth not partly dependent on one or more observer’s discernment of what is real (i.e., actual or else ontically occurrent). — javra

I think I've presented enough stuff on truth over the years not to need to do so again here. T-sentences and deflation.

Are you now labeling yourself an “antirealist”? — javra

No. But if you insist that in order to be true a statement must be believed (or some other intentional attitude) then you appear to be committing yourself to rejecting bivalent logic in this context and hence to antirealism.

Anyway, thanks for your response. I'll take your insistence that change requires time as axiomatic, then.

But I don't see how you could then understand $\frac{\delta x}{\delta y}$.

Cheers.

abstract objects — Wayfarer

Ok. I think it mush the same as the intentionality argument, actually. Numbers and abstracta are something we do. Bits of grammar. Otherwise, Plato was right, and nobody wants that.

:gasp: — 180 Proof

Yeah, I know.

I thought as much.

What will be fun to watch here is the pragmatists who will insist on there being only one explanation.

The most annoying thing here, and one that I doubt will be addressed, is the knowledge argument, since it uses qualia, which I dislike, to show that mind is not (just) physical, which I do like.

And this is where I find myself in some agreement with @Wayfarer.

IME I've found that physicalism is the worst methological paradigm for explaining – modeling – aspects of the natural world except for all those other non-physical or anti-physical paradigms tried from time to time. — 180 Proof

Here's a thought: why not use different sorts of explanations for different things.

There's a hidden assumption that there can be only one sort of explanation. An epistemic monism.

My toaster popped, so I missed the emoji.

See 's considered post. So many different ideas that need to be teased out in order to make sense of what is going on. The result is often confusion.

Of course you're now providing an opening for the ersatz mystics and fundamentalists. If physicalism can't account for our entire experince than this gap can immediately be plugged with magic or gods — Tom Storm

:yikes:

So the only choice is between the irrationalism of physicalism and the irrationalism of mysticism and fundamentalists?

i don't think so.

what account of the world do you give when talking to an average person with some philosophical interest? — Tom Storm

I'll give a physical account where it is appropriate; but not if they are asking about why folk stop at red traffic lights.

Edit: Oh, and Hempel's paradox is different to Hempel's dilemma.

That's probably the best way to see what physicalism has to say for itself. Thanks! — frank

:wink: I think it will add a few pages to your thread.

Yep. pointed out physicalism is at best a methodological imperative.

What's the Hempel's dilemma aspect of the traffic light... — Tom Storm

if physicalism is defined via reference to contemporary physics, then it is false — after all, who thinks that contemporary physics is complete? — but if physicalism is defined via reference to a future or ideal physics, then it is trivial — after all, who can predict what a future physics contains? — SEP

contemporary physics cannot provide an adequate description of the function of a traffic light. So it falls back on the claim that some future version fo physics will be able to provide that explanation (see ). It amounts to an act of faith.

what do you think the best arguments for it are? — frank

Sorry, Frank - I've flipped the thread to "what is the best argument against physicalism"...

Oops.

Where is this heading - convention and behavior? — Tom Storm

I'm just giving a concrete example of Hemple's dilemma. But further, physicalism is itself not a physicalist doctrine, and hence denies itself.

Of course, people don't always stop at red lights, so the question is inapt. — Janus

Then give us a physical explanation of why folk sometimes do not stop at the red light. And what often happens next.

I would state that everything that we've discovered so far is physical in origin. — Philosophim

SO explain, using only physics, why folk stop at the red light.